30 August 2014

It is exactly 20 years since Oasis released their debut album, Definitely Maybe, so here are some supersonic facts about the record.

1) Definitely Maybe became the UK's fastest-selling debut album of all time, with 86,000 units shifted in the first week alone – a record held until 2006, when Arctic Monkeys released their debut album, Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not. Leona Lewis (2007) and Susan Boyle (2009) have since broken the record again. Informed of this, Liam Gallagher would no doubt shrug dismissively and spit back that Definitely Maybe went on to sell 15 million records worldwide – and no one would dare to argue.

2) The artwork for Definitely Maybe warrants scrutiny.

Clockwise from bottom left.

– The large image of Burt Bacharach in the bottom left of the artwork is, first and foremost, a straightforward homage to one of Noel's musical heroes but the positioning of the picture is also significant. It is reminiscent of where Pink Floyd positioned the artwork for the soundtrack to the film, Gigi, on the cover of their 1969 album, Ummagumma. One presumes this was Noel's nod to the prog rockers, rather than the Vincente Minnelli musical film.

– There is a small photograph of Manchester United legend George Best in the window, which was guitarist Bonehead's defiant reminder that not every member of Oasis is a Manchester City fan.

– The Good, the Bad and the Ugly is playing on the television. Noel has since declared that this Clint Eastwood western is one of his favourite films.

– Inevitably, if Bonehead was having a picture of a Manchester United player, the Gallagher brothers were going to have a bigger picture of a Manchester City legend. And who else but Rodney Marsh, the club's record signing, who scored 35 league goals in 116 appearances.

3) Noel wrote the lyrics to Live Forever (the third single from Definitely Maybe and the band's first top-10 hit) as a direct response to early-Nineties grunge music, which he thought unnecessarily depressing. Fixing his crosshairs on Kurt Cobain's band, Nirvana, Noel said: "It seems to me that here was a guy [Cobain] who had everything, and was miserable about it. And we had f--- all, and I still thought that getting up in the morning was the greatest f---ing thing ever." This cheeriness is certainly reflected in Noel's lyrics: "Maybe I just want to fly, I want to live I don't want to die."

4) Slide Away was due to be released as a fifth single from Definitely Maybe but Noel vetoed the idea, explaining that "You can't have five [singles] off a debut album".

5) Speaking of Slide Away, the song was first written using a guitar which Johnny Marr from The Smiths had given Noel. And it wasn't just any old thing either – Marr gave Noel a 1960 Gibson Les Paul that he himself had bought from The Who's Pete Townshend. "I couldn't give him something dodgy or cheap,” Marr explained. Rumours that the guitar has special powers are, of course, unproven but consider this: a) Marr had used the same guitar to record a number of The Smiths finest records and b) Noel later said: "When I got that guitar, I swear Slide Away seemed to write itself." It should also be said that the guitar was broken during a stage invasion at a 1994 gig in Newcastle. Not so many special powers after all, then.

6) Bassist Paul "Guigsy" McGuigan didn't actually play bass on a single track of Definitely Maybe. As the sessions at both Monnow Valley Studios, near Monmouth, and Sawmills Studios, Cornwall, became increasingly frantic and the results continued to disappoint, Noel re-recorded large sections of the record himself, including all of McGuigan's bass parts. Tony McCarroll, the band's drummer at the time, explained how he found this out to NME: "I never found out about that [McGuigan not featuring on Definitely Maybe] until way down the line. There had been an argument on tour about my drumming and Guigsy told me that he wasn't on there [Definitely Maybe]. I admired him for that."

7) Coca-Cola successfully sued Oasis for $500,000, claiming that Shakermaker, the second single from Definitely Maybe, sounded too similar to the New Seekers's I’d Like To Teach The World To Sing (In Perfect Harmony), which they used in their 1971 advertisement.

8) Noel quit the band while touring Definitely Maybe, citing an incident in which Liam struck him with a tambourine on stage. It was to be the first of many bust-ups and walk-outs in the band.

9) The lyrics to the song Married with Children were inspired by Noel's girlfriend at the time, Louise Jones. Fed up of hearing her boyfriend playing the guitar day after day, Jones reportedly told Noel that "your music's shite, it keeps me up all night". The line is quoted verbatim in the song. Noel also confessed to taking inspiration from the American sitcom, Married... with Children. "I looked at them two in the show, and looked at us two, and I thought, that's us, that is!

"It's another song that anybody could relate to, because if you live with a girlfriend or just a flatmate, there are always petty things that you hate about them, and this song's just about pettiness."

10) Liam can't understand why anyone has bothered to release a re-mastered edition of Definitely Maybe to celebrate its 20th anniversary. When the news was announced in February, Liam took to Twitter to say: "HOW CAN YOU REMASTER SOMETHING THATS ALREADY BEING MASTERED. DONT BUY INTO IT. LET IT BE LG X"

Definitely Maybe is the debut album by English band Oasis, released on August 30th 1994. It was an immediate commercial and critical success in the UK, having followed on the heels of singles "Supersonic", "Shakermaker" and particularly the popular "Live Forever".

Definitely Maybe went straight to number one and 7x platinum in the UK Album charts on initial release. It was the fastest selling debut album of all time in the UK when released. Definitely Maybe marked the beginning of Oasis' success in America, selling over 1 million copies there, although only reaching #58 on the Billboard 200. The album went on to sell over 7.5 million copies worldwide.

In 1997 Definitely Maybe was named the 14th greatest album of all time in a 'Music of the Millennium' poll conducted by HMV, Channel 4, The Guardian and Classic FM. In 2005 Channel 4's '100 Greatest Albums' countdown placed the album at number 6. In 2006 NME placed the album third in a list of the greatest British albums ever, behind The Stone Roses and The Queen Is Dead. In a recent British poll, run by NME and the book of British Hit Singles and Albums, Definitely Maybe was voted the best album of all time with The Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band finishing second and Revolver third. Q magazine readers placed it at five on their greatest albums of all time list in 2006 and in that same year NME hailed it as the greatest album of all time. It is frequently referred to as the greatest debut album of all time.

Album History
In 1994, Oasis were seen as a distant echo of the moribund 'Madchester' scene which had exploded in the early 1990s. Unlike other Madchester bands who indulged in experiments with funk, dance or hip-hop, Oasis presented themselves as a relatively straightforward rock and roll band. Along with bands like Blur and The Verve they seemed to encapsulate a new wave, one which did not yet have a name. By the end of the year the media coined the term Britpop, of which Definitely Maybe retrospectively became one of the pivotal albums.

Many of the songs had originally appeared on Oasis' "Live Demonstration" demo recorded in Liverpool the year before with Chris and Tony Griffiths of The Real People. The main recording sessions took longer than expected, with the bulk of the album having to be recorded three different times with Mark Coyle producing, before Owen Morris came up with a mix that everyone was satisfied with. The album cost nearly £85,000 to produce, a huge amount of money for a debut album at the time.

The album title, according to Noel Gallagher, comes from a poster he saw in a pub, although he cannot remember what the poster was advertising.

29 August 2014

It was exactly 20 years ago this week that Liam Gallagher and his Oasis bandmates burst on to the music scene with their iconic debut album, Definitely Maybe.

But Liam looked to have aged hardly a day when we spied him returning to home turf on Friday night.

Burnage-born Liam, 41, was certainly rocking a vintage Oasis look - wearing his signature parka jacket while his hair has returned to the fringed style that many will recall from his 90s heyday.

And the Live Forever star even gave our snapper a trademark Rock 'n' Roll star 'salute', shall we say, as he left the Radisson Edwardian Blu Hotel in the city centre.

Tomorrow marks the official 20th anniversary of the release of Definitely Maybe, Oasis' seminal work, which has prompted a 'remastered' reissue from the now defunct band's former record label.

Bonehead: Definitely Maybe is Oasis' finest hour as remastered version is released

Stand By Me: Hundreds of fans queue for Oasis exhibition days before it closes

20 facts about Oasis' Supersonic 20 years after its first release

But Liam, now frontman of band Beady Eye, is unlikely to be getting too nostalgic about it.

For after the re-release was announced, he urged fans NOT to buy it.

He said on his Twitter account at the time: "How can you remaster something that's already mastered. Don't buy into it. Let it be."

Many fans had believed the 20th anniversary might prompt a reunion between warring Gallagher brothers Liam and Noel, but sadly that has yet to transpire.

Liam's return home to Manchester on the eve of the anniversary appears to be coincidental - as it is understood he's actually come home to watch his beloved Manchester City play at the Etihad Stadium on Saturday against Stoke City.

We'd love to be a fly on the wall at the Rad Ed over breakfast in the morning - as those Stoke players appear to have checked in to the same hotel as the Mad For It Blues fan.

28 August 2014

This year, Oasis' first two albums – 'Definitely Maybe' and '(What’s The Story) Morning Glory?' – have been reissued.

Looking back now, and taking the current music scene into consideration, it's hard to imagine how big, how culturally relevant and how all-conquering Oasis were from 1994 – 1996.

In his new book about 'Definitely Maybe' for the 33 1/3 series, author Alex Niven sums it up like so: 'Oasis wrote songs that came closer to narrating the collective hopes and dreams of a people than any other band in the last quarter century.'

They sold more albums than any other band. They played bigger gigs than any other band.

They had more newspaper articles written about them than any other band. They were better than any other band. And this NME Collector’s Edition is an attempt to bottle up and present the wild spirit of the times: Liam's charisma, Noel’s inability to write a bad song, the hope, optimism and chaos that followed the band.

Over 100 pages it tells the story of every song they wrote, recorded and released during the time, delves into the NME, Melody Maker and VOX archives to pick out some classic interviews, and builds up to the peak of their career: playing to a quarter of a million people at Knebworth Park in August 1996.

The following statement by Noel Gallagher, was posted on the Official Oasis Site on August 28th 2009.

"It's with some sadness and great relief to tell you that I quit Oasis tonight. People will write and say what they like, but I simply could not go on working with Liam a day longer."Apologies to all the people who bought tickets for the shows in Paris, Konstanz and Milan."

Oasis were due to play the Rock en Seine festival in Paris but cancelled at the last minute. When the support band said Oasis would not be performing, many fans thought it was a joke, but then screens at either side of the stage showed this message: "As a result of an altercation within the band, the Oasis gig has been cancelled."

27 August 2014

Big Brother Recordings have revealed the contents of the Super Deluxe Box Set of (What's The Story) Morning Glory?, the second in the new Oasis: Chasing The Sunseries following May's release of Definitely Maybe, which charted in the U.K. at No.5. The Super Deluxe Box Set, released on September 30th and available for pre-order here, will be packaged in a large gift box and will include:

Coffee Table Book containing rare and unseen photos

Replica of the original promo cassette including Step Out, which was removed before release

Roll With It Cigarette Papers, a replica of the original 1995 promo item

180 gram Double 12 inch Vinyl in gatefold sleeve

Deluxe 3 x CD Album

Set of 3 Postcards & 12 x 12 inch Art Print

All pre orders of the Super Deluxe Box set via www.Oasisinet.com come with a replica of the original Some Might Say 12" featuring B sides Talk Tonight and Acquiesce(Remastered).

All pre orders of the Super Deluxe Box set via www.Oasisinet.com come with a replica of the original Some Might Say 12" featuring B sides Talk Tonight and Acquiesce(Remastered).

(What's The Story) Morning Glory? will also be available on CD, Special Edition 3 x CD, and 12" vinyl LP from September 30th.

SUPER DELUXE BOXSET CONTENTS

FURTHER DETAILS:Collectors Coffee Table Book

This beautiful 56 page hardback book contains rare and unseen photographs documenting the (What's The Story) Morning Glory? period by Stefan de Batselier, Brian Cannon, Kevin Cummings, Grant Fleming, Jill Furmanovsky, Owen Morris, Tom Sheehan - plus private photos taken by the inner circle. Original artwork designer Brian Cannon explains the story behind each single cover art and sleeve notes are written by Neil McCormick.

7 inch Vinyl

This 7 inch vinyl includes demos of Hello and She's Electric, both of which were recorded in Definitely Maybe producer Mark Coyle's studio. The Hello (Demo) track is exclusive to the box set.

12 inch Vinyl

This 12 inch vinyl is a replica of the original promotional 12 inch, sent to industry contacts as a promotional item in 1995. Tracklisting features A side Cum on Feel The Noize and B side Champagne Supernova (Lynch Mob Beats Remix), which has never been commercially available.

Cassette

Exact replica of the original promotional copy of (What's The Story) Morning Glory? This rare cassette, only sent out to industry contacts, has never been commercially available. It includes Step Out, which was removed from the album prior to its release

Roll With It Cigarette Papers

These rolling papers were an original 1995 promotional item. They have been replicated solely for the box set and feature the lyrics for Roll With It printed on the back.

180 Gram Double 12 Inch Vinyl In Gatefold Sleeve

Heavyweight vinyl of (What's The Story) Morning Glory? album, meticulously remastered from the original 1995 half inch tapes. Includes download code for B sides, plus unreleased and rare tracks including demos and live recordings.

With Oasis about to release a special edition of (What’s The Story) Morning Glory? next month this month’s Q is a celebration of the band’s second album.

The magazine is on sale now boasting two covers – one featuring Liam and one Noel – Q339 features a unique examination of the Gallaghers’ second record, including previously unseen photographs, archive interviews, a look at the record’s impact and features an uncut track-by-track guide to (What’s The Story) Morning Glory? by Noel.

Last month, we heard an early take of “Bonehead’s Bank Holiday” now comes the acoustic demo of “She’s Electric”.

Noel Gallagher’s album notes say, the origins of “She’s Electric” date all the way back to his school days.

“‘I’ll be you and you be me’ is from Stop, Look and Listen,” he explains of the songs lyrics. “We used to be at school and you’d have a class where’d they play TV. It was Sesame Street but an English version. That stayed with me for years until I wrote ‘She’s Electric.'”

22 August 2014

Liam Gallagher has taken part in the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge, and has nominatied Spongebob Squarepants and his fellow cartoon character Ivor the Engine to take part in the challenge, before also laying down the gauntlet to his brother Noel.

"The Importance Of Being Idle" is a song on the British rock band Oasis' sixth album, Don't Believe the Truth, written and sung by lead guitarist Noel Gallagher. It was the second single released from the album in the UK, on August 22, 2005, where it debuted at #1. It was also the first time that Oasis earned two successive #1's in the same calendar year. It was written by Gallagher sometime during the summer of 2004, before the band made their final attempt at recording what would become Don't Believe the Truth. He got the title from the Mark Twain book of the same name which he found whilst cleaning out his garage (it belonged not to him but to girlfriend Sara McDonald.)

Musically, as Noel has commented, the song sounds like tunes from two British bands, The Kinks and The La's. In particular, the sentiment expressed is noticeably similar to The Kinks' "Sunny Afternoon" and "Dead End Street", and the use of falsetto for every other verse line recalls The La's "Feelin'". The guitar sound is similar also to The La's b-sides; "Clean Prophet" and "Over". It also is a breakaway from the sound of Oasis's latter albums, especially the straight ahead rock 'n' roll anthems of Heathen Chemistry. The keyboard used on the pre-chorus sections was bought by bassist Andy Bell from the auction website eBay.

Noel has said that the lyrics of "The Importance of Being Idle" are inspired by his own laziness. Some of the second verse, with the reference to begging his doctor for "one more line", seems to be referring to an actual event as this resembles Noel's account of how he gave up cocaine in 1998.

Most reviewers acclaimed the track as one of the highlights of Don't Believe the Truth, which itself was widely praised as a marked return to form. The band mentioned in interviews in June that it would become the second single, after the UK Number One "Lyla". The b-sides are Liam Gallagher's "Pass Me Down the Wine" and Gem Archer's "The Quiet Ones."

The promo film was directed by Dawn Shadforth, (whose previous videos include Kylie Minogue's award-winning "Can't Get You Out Of My Head"). Shadforth's film for "The Importance of Being Idle' starred Welsh actor Rhys Ifans and homages the style of early 1960s kitchen sink drama British films, and is set during the build up to a funeral procession in a northern town, with the extravagant undertakers parading the coffin at the video's climax and Ifans playing the part of a high-kicking funeral director. The video is based on the film and play Billy Liar with Ifans playing the role of Billy. Noel and Liam therefore play Shadrack & Duxbury, the owners of the funeral parlour where Billy works. The rest band (Gem,Andy and Zak) make a brief appearance as lazy workers playing cards in an undertaker's office. It was widely acclaimed at the time as being probably the best video Oasis had ever made, not least by the band themselves, who were said to be very happy with the finished product. The video is very similar in style and concept to the music video for "Dead End Street" by The Kinks.

Q Magazine readers placed the song at #1 in a list of 2005's greatest tracks.

The video for the song was voted the video of the year at the NME Awards.

21 August 2014

The former Oasis frontman said "I didn't think I could get any cooler but I'll give it a try".

The bucket challenge just got Rock N Roll after Liam Gallagher agreed to take the plunge.

The former Oasis frontman was nominated to do the charity craze by City star Sergio Ageuro.

And Blues fanatic Liam tonight informed his more than 800,000 twitter followers that he had accepted the challenge.

However, he didn’t miss the opportunity to slip in a bit of his legendary self confidence saying: “Ah Sergio, I didn’t think I could get any cooler but I’ll give it a try LG x”

Ageuro posted a video online of him being doused in ice cold water as part of the stunt which is designed to raise awareness of Motor Neuron Disease, known as Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), in the United States.

And he has also given his manager something else to worry about at training tomorrow.

Bradley Cooper says he's a big fan of Oasis, after hanging out with singer-songwriter Noel Gallagher at Glastonbury.

Bradley, 39, has revealed his love of the group - who officially split in 2009 after a string of high-profile disagreements between Noel and Liam Gallagher - was furthered after he spent time hanging out with singer-songwriter Noel at Glastonbury.

Reflecting on his appreciation of the band, Bradley told The Sun newspaper: ''Of course I knew who Oasis were but never listened to much of their stuff. I have started to since then and they are pretty special.

''You can hear that they were trendsetting. So many current bands have clearly taken inspiration from them.''

Former Oasis star Paul 'Guigsy' Mcguigan did not play a note of music on the band's iconic debut album Definitely Maybe.

The bassist was a founding member of the British band and performed live with them throughout their mid-1990s heyday before quitting in 1999.

He was part of the line-up for the Wonderwall hitmakers' first three albums, but it has emerged none of his bass playing appears on the band's 1994 debut as all his parts were re-recorded by guitarist Noel Gallagher during increasingly fraught studio sessions.

Tony McCarroll, the band's then-drummer, tells NME magazine, "I never found out about that until way down the line. There had been an argument on tour about my drumming and Guigs told me that he wasn't on there.

Be Here Now is the third studio album by the English rock band Oasis. Released on August 21 1997, the album was highly anticipated by both music critics and fans as a result of the band's previous worldwide successes with their 1994 debut album Definitely Maybe, and its 1995 follow up (What's the Story) Morning Glory?. The album's pre-release build up led to considerable hype within both the music and mainstream press. At that point, Oasis were at the height of their fame, and Be Here Now became the UK's fastest selling album to date, selling over 420,000 units on the first day of release alone, and over one million within two weeks. As of 2007, the album has sold eight million copies worldwide.

Oasis' management company Ignition were aware of the danger of overexposure, and before its release they sought to control the media's access to the album. Ignition's campaign included limiting pre-release radio airplay, and requesting that journalists sign gag agreements. These tactics resulted in the alienation of members of both the music and mainstream media, as well as many industry members connected with the band. Ignition's attempts to limit pre-release access to the album only served to fuel large scale speculation and publicity within the British music scene.

Artistically Be Here Now failed to live up to the expectations that preceded its release. Although initial reviews were positive, retrospectively the album is viewed by much of the music press and by most members of the band as over-indulgent and bloated. In 2007, Q magazine described Be Here Now as "a disastrous, overblown folly—the moment when Oasis, their judgement clouded by drugs and blanket adulation, ran aground on their own sky-high self-belief." The album's producer Owen Morris said of the recording sessions: "The only reason anyone was there was the money. Noel had decided Liam was a shit singer. Liam had decided he hated Noel's songs [...] Massive amounts of drugs. Big fights. Bad vibes. Shit recordings." None of its songs were included on the band's 2006 "best of" compilation album Stop the Clocks.

Album cover
The cover image to Be Here Now was shot at the Stock Hotel in Hertfordshire in April 1997. It features the band standing outside the hotel surrounded by assorted props. At the centre of the image is a Rolls Royce floating in a swimming pool. The photographer Michael Spencer Johns said the original concept involved shooting each band member in various locations around the world, but when the cost proved prohibitive, the shoot was relocated to the Stock Hotel. Spencer remarked that the shoot "degenerated into chaos", adding that "by 8pm, everyone was in the bar, there were schoolkids all over the set, and the lighting crew couldn't start the generator.

It was Alice in Wonderland meets Apocalypse Now." Despite various meanings people have tried to read into the selection of the cover props, Johns said Gallagher simply selected items from the BBC props store he thought would look good in the picture. Two of the props that had considered thought in their inclusion were the inflatable globe (intended as a homage to the sleeve of Definitely Maybe) and the Rolls Royce, which was suggested by Arthurs. The release date in each region was commemorated on the calendar pictured on the sleeve; Harris said the dating "[encouraged] fans to believe that to buy a copy on the day it appeared was to participate in some kind of historical event."

20 August 2014

With Oasis about to release a special edition of (What’s The Story) Morning Glory? next month this month’s Q is a celebration of the band’s second album.

On sale from Tuesday (26 August) and boasting two covers – one featuring Liam and one Noel – Q339 features a unique examination of the Gallaghers’ second record, including previously unseen photographs, archive interviews, a look at the record’s impact and features an uncut track-by-track guide to (What’s The Story) Morning Glory? by Noel.

Ryan Adams has told the NME he does not care what Noel Gallagher thinks about Oasis' 1997 album 'Be Here Now'.

Adams said: “I’m too old to care who likes my records, It’s all bullshit anyway. People make judgements about records but the music is eternal. I like ‘Be Here Now’. I don’t even care if Noel Gallagher doesn’t like it, because you know what? I will take two bong hits and that record will blow my mind.”